Making a Living in the West - Woman's Style

In the hills of Idaho and Colorado were two women who came to the mining camps where men were digging for gold and silver. Contrary to what tales came out of the Wild West, not all women were notorious...

Mrs. Theodore Schultz was the first white woman in the mining camp.  She started a boarding house
and charge $3.00 per meal.  On Sundays, she writes, "I often got 200 extra men.  I worked 18 hours a day.  We had little provisions but bushels of gold dust.  I had gold dust everywhere, in everything, I threw it on the wood box, under the beds..." 

Mrs. Fowler ran a boarding house in Pueblo, Colorado.  She only charged $1.00 a meal and had all the men she could cook for.  Space was at such a premium that men paid for the privilege of sleeping on the ground outside the boarding house.

For women who provided a semblance of home with a warm meal and a clean bed, there were fortunes to be made in the mining camps.  These were just two examples...

Next - Afro-American pioneers

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Today in Pioneer History:  On June 4, 1876,  the Transcontinental Express train arrives in San Francisco, a mere 83 hours after leaving New York City,